


Selfish Things

by Birdbitch



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - 1970s, Alternate Universe - 1980s, Alternative Universe - FBI, DEA Agents, F/M, Gen, M/M, Organized Crime
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-05-28 05:39:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6316798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Birdbitch/pseuds/Birdbitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>DEA Agent Luke Skywalker has just found out the notorious drug lord Darth Vader, who he and his team have been pursuing since he joined the agency in the first place, is his father. He and his twin sister Leia attempt to bring him back to justice while reconciling their family history.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't know how long this is going to be. I do know that I'm probably going to be making pretty heavy use of flashbacks, and I'm basically following the plot of the original series, except, you know, changing the situation surrounding it. Think Star Wars meets Narcos. If it helps, we're picking up in the mid-space between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Enjoy!

Luke sits in the hospital bed staring out of the window at the clear blue sky. It’s summer and they’re expecting not a lot of rain--not that they really ever expect it to begin with, here. Any clouds might be from fires in backyards. “You’re thinking about telling me I should quit,” he says, and on his right side Leia doesn’t even flinch when he says it. He’s right and she knows better to act like he’s not.

“You’re the only family I have, Luke,” she says. She believes that, because Luke hasn’t told her about their father yet, and hasn’t find the right time to do so. He will, someday. Just not right now, when he can barely talk for five minutes without getting exhausted. “I thought I should at least try to get you out of this.” She squeezes his hand though, already knowing his answer. “They have Han.”

“I know.” He looks at her, tries to see past the calm veneer or whatever it is she’s using to really hide her actual feelings, but it’s tough enough even knowing her to understand that she’s afraid right now. Actually afraid, and not even like the first time she was kidnapped because back then, she didn’t actually know what Darth Vader’s guys are capable of. There’s a different kind of fear that comes with knowledge and Luke? He knows that, at this point. “You’re not out of it.” It’s more of a statement than a question, and she looks at her lap before looking back at him.

“They’re making me wear a bulletproof vest now,” she says, “but yeah. I’m still in.”

“Then so am I.”

As soon as he finishes physical therapy, is back on his feet without a jolting pain in his left leg from where he thinks he probably broke his tibia, Luke’s getting Han because the guy’s his partner and his sister is for whatever reason hopelessly in love with him, whether she says so or not. Then, he’s going after Darth Vader, the man who did this to him. Luke swallows over the lump in his throat and leans back against the hospital pillows. He’s going after his father.

* * *

 

The thing is, Darth Vader? Wasn’t always Darth Vader, in the same way that not all comic book villains start out as evil. Something happens and they change. At one point, Darth Vader was still Anakin Skywalker, a young and promising FBI agent with everything to prove when he was assigned to protect Senator Padme Amidala. The people who knew him as Anakin have all mostly died at this point, though.

There was his mother; Shmi Skywalker-Lars had had a tough life growing up and even through raising Anakin until she got married to Cliegg Lars. Things seemed to be turning around until she was murdered. The investigation came up inconclusive, something that bothered Anakin for most of his life. It’s hard to say if it still does.

Then, there was Senator Amidala--but we’ll get to her later, since she’s more than a footnote in someone else’s life tragedy.

And then there was Ben Kenobi, Anakin’s partner when he joined the FBI.

Actually, Ben was part of why Anakin got caught up in this mess to begin with. Or, if not Ben, then his mentor before the guy died, but Ben’s the one Anakin got stuck with. It’s not like Anakin really thought of him as responsible for getting him involved--maybe that’s just as much the FBI for the cases they stuck them on. Other things, though, like jealousy? Sure--when Anakin wasn’t half in love with Ben himself, he figured he was trying (and maybe succeeding) to fuck the pretty young senator from Massachusetts, who Anakin was always in love with. Whenever they got back to HQ, Ben was usually the one receiving praise for their work while Anakin was scolded for acting too brashly, too arrogantly. But even when Anakin blamed Ben for his own fall to the wrong side of the law, he never really blamed him for bringing him into contact with the criminal world to begin with.

Anakin Skywalker had been seeing that all his life.

Ben was the last person, too, who probably actually knew what Darth Vader really was, even 19 years after he took on that mantel. It’s probably why, when the men saw each other again, Vader knew he had to kill him.

* * *

 

Luke’s been reviewing Ben’s journals from the past 20 years--starting, interestingly enough, with the news about the conception of him and his twin sister, since it seems like Padme Amidala told him before letting anyone else know. It’s just about the only thing he can do in the hospital, since it’s difficult to bring classified documents anywhere, and the shoe boxes full of these are much more innocuous.

So his days for the past couple of weeks have been: wake up in pain, get breakfast brought to him, go to physical therapy for three hours (they say he’s making progress, but he kind of doubts it), go to group talk therapy for another two hours (where he’s supposed to be discussing what happened to him so he can recover, but the whole thing is still classified, so he really can’t talk about any of it except in vague terms that everybody nods along with like they get it), and then come back to his room to read these journals. He doesn’t bother taking notes on them, because if he needs to, he can just go back to them. They’re all the same pocket sized ones, probably bought at a grocery store in 3-packs.

Ben was a journalist before switching careers and becoming a federal agent; the two things combined means there’s some meticulous note-taking that happened from 1957 through 1976--they trail off a little once Luke turned 18, presumably because that was when Ben started becoming more of an actual mentor to him and got him into a good school. Most of the notes are a little reflective, and a lot of it has to do with Luke and Leia themselves, which makes him smile a little when he reads over it. There were a lot of times when Luke had wished Ben was his dad after all, even though after seeing a picture of a young Anakin and Ben together, it was pretty clear who Luke belonged to, genetically.

The rest of the journals are more interesting from a “We need to find Darth Vader” standpoint. Even after technically “retiring” from the FBI, it seems like old Ben still was working for them. There’s info about Darth Vader’s movements up and down the southern California coast and over through Las Vegas, possible small gang connections to the much larger, much more insidious Empire. In these 3x5” books, Ben kept frequent notes on telephone calls made to moles and rats and reporters, any mentions in the news of Vader or anything that might have looked like him, almost everything. Some of the pages are more like diary entries, wistful and sad, and those are the moments where Luke wishes they had talked more about everything (would he have felt less confused in high school about his feelings towards his best friend, knowing that there were nights where Ben Kenobi thought back to a guy only referred to as “Commander Cody”? Maybe), if not only because then he could have gotten more time to actually spend with the guy, but because everything wouldn’t feel like pulling back a curtain now.

In any case, at least up until Luke turned 18, it seems like Ben Kenobi had been still actively trying to bring Vader to justice.

“I don’t think it’s fair to say he killed her,” Ben wrote one night in the middle of January. It’s undated, but Luke gets a feeling he knows when it was. The pen in looks shaky on the page and there are blotches blurring some of the ink and lines. He had been crying, Luke realizes, and he knows then that it’s about his mother, probably written in the hospital where he and Leia were delivered and where his mother died. The heart rate monitor that he’s connected to starts beeping a little faster; this is the only thing he can have, he can do, while he’s here though, so he tries to calm down. Tries to stay calm. “I also don’t think it’s fair to say he didn’t. The twins are safe with their aunt and uncle. Looks like I’m staying here after all.”

The card from the funeral service is taped onto the next page. It bothers Luke how much the woman in the photo looks like Leia, even despite knowing that she’s their mother, and he knows--he gets it, understands that Padme was his mother, but he can’t--he has to close his eyes, lean back and breathe. He has to breathe.

Anakin killed her, and he’d tried to kill him, too.

Or, no--maybe he thought he wanted to kill them, but knew deep down that he couldn’t. Ben didn’t want to think that Anakin would kill the woman he loved, even if Darth Vader had to. (Did he know what would happen when the two of them met again?) Ben probably would have said that Anakin couldn’t actually kill his own son, either. Luke practices breathing in and out and wonders what his mother would have done if she lived, if she hadn’t died moments after giving birth. Maybe Padme would have forgiven Anakin, too. He remembers the look Ben had thrown his way right before being shot, knows that even in that final moment, he didn’t blame Anakin as much as he was devastated by Darth Vader. Maybe they both really forgave him.

Luke thinks he’s going to have to try, too.

He startles when Wedge Antilles opens his hospital door, unaware that the medication he's on had made him drift off--again. Wedge isn’t the only guy from the team to have visited, but he is the only one who has come more than twice. “How’s the reading going?” he asks while Luke sits up and tries to reorient himself, rubbing his eyes and glancing at his surroundings.

“Huh? Oh. This. Why’s this the first time I’m seeing these?” he asks, and Wedge pulls the visitor seat closer to the bed so he can pick one up.

“Good goddamn question. I guess nobody thought to give Kenobi’s place a look over until Leia suggested it. Took an ace safecracker to get at these, though.”

Luke snorts. “Let me guess. You?”

“The one and only, Skywalker.” Wedge starts flipping through the journal he picked up. “Anything good in these?”

“Yeah, there’s--he took really great notes.”

“Good. Might just be a godsend or something. We found an old gun in the safe, too--obviously we can’t give it to you while you’re here, but it’s yours once you’re out of this dump.”

“I don’t know, compared to dying, it isn’t so bad here.”

“Yeah, Lando told me where they found you. Christ, Luke.” Wedge pauses, looks at him hard like there’s something profound and amazing happening in his head. Maybe there is--Luke just knows he kind of likes the feeling of that look weighing on him, settling down in his gut. “I would have gone with you.”

It seems like the right moment to touch Wedge’s hand, so Luke does. The door is closed because he’s an Important Federal Agent, and Leia scared the staff into giving him privacy, so he doesn’t feel so worried about doing it. “I know,” he says. “I didn’t have time to call for backup. Han and Leia were in trouble.”

Wedge turns his hand over like he’s thinking about holding it and then does. “You almost died.”

“But I’m alive now, aren’t I?” He swallows, the feeling thick in his throat. “I already told everyone that I’m going back, so if you’re going to try to convince me not to just because I got shot--”

“You know I wouldn’t try. We’re both that kind of crazy, aren’t we?” Wedge huffs a combination of a laugh and a snort. “I haven’t told anyone about this before, but. You remember, what I said about my parents? Why I got into this whole thing in the first place.”

“Sure.” There’s not a member of their entire team who doesn’t know that Wedge’s parents were killed by a dealer. Not everyone has a story like that about why they got started, but plenty of them do. He and Luke have talked--quietly, in small, dark apartments waiting for some kind of noise or movement--about it a couple of times. Sometimes it’s nice to know you’re not the only one.

“When I finally found the guy who did it, I--you know, my partner, Porkins, he says I did what I had to do to keep us alive, but--like, I didn’t kill this guy because he was about to shoot me and Porkins, you know.” He looks down at their hands, at where his has suddenly tightened on Luke’s. “I did it because I wanted him dead, my life at stake or not. Han probably would understand, since we’re both from the same place and it’s--but it’s something you need to know, Luke.”

He lets out a soft breath when Wedge has finished talking, and he grazes his hand over the top of Wedge’s head before settling it there. “Okay,” he says.

“Don’t--Luke, whatever you do, don’t do it even though he deserves it.” Wedge looks up at him again, eyes shiny like he needs to cry but will put it off until he’s alone, later, in his apartment. “I’ll do it, if it comes down to it, but you--can’t.”

Luke doesn’t tell him, I’ve shot people before, Wedge, because that’s not what he means and Luke knows it. “Okay,” he repeats, and it’s an acceptable answer given the position he’s in. He glances over at the window of the doorframe, worried for a second that a nurse might decide he’s ready for a shower now, but when he doesn’t see anyone, he leans down to kiss Wedge’s ear. Wedge moves a little, kisses him almost chastely, but only because Luke’s pulling back before they’ve even really started. “The gunshot,” Luke says, voice soft. “The doctor says I’m not supposed to get too excited.”

It makes Wedge think for a second and then laugh, clearing the air. Wedge sighs and leans back in the chair. “I rile you up that much?”

“I recall you being at least a little capable of it.”

He doesn’t continue the thought, though, instead picking up the open journal that had slid to his lap. “I think Ben thought Vader killed my mom,” he says, looking at the prayer card again. “The senator, I mean. God. This is kind of screwed up, isn’t it? I never thought--anyway, there’s a lot here about small gangs, probably enough to keep the team busy--”

“Luke, has anyone told you that maybe you need time to process everything?” Wedge asks, putting the journal he had picked up down on the bedside table.

“I’m processing it right now. I can’t do anything but process it, Wedge--it’s not like I can just get up and go for a run until they decide I’ve finished enough physical therapy for the broken leg. I’m processing it.” After that, Wedge shuts up and lets Luke keep talking about what’s in Ben’s journals. There’s a lot, and even if Luke doesn’t need to take notes on it all, Wedge does, and he takes out his jotter and the steno pad he keeps on him to try to follow along.

After more than an hour of talking, Wedge says, “You’re looking a little green,” and Luke nods his head, closes his eyes.

“Sorry. I want to keep going. It’s just that. You know.”

“We got a lot covered. Did you want us to start scouting out that Jabba guy, start figuring out where he’s got Han so when you’re ready we can go get him back?”

He nods his head. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s. Fine. I should be back on desk duty in a week.”

“We’ll see what Leia has to say about it.” Wedge stands up, stretches. Tucks his pad and pen back into the pocket of his denim jacket and leans down to give Luke a gentle hug, a kiss hidden by his jawline. “I can come back tomorrow.”

“No, it’s--it’ll be fine. I’ll see you.”

Luke watches Wedge leave, say something that makes a nurse laugh, and sinks back against the mattress.


	2. Chapter 2

“But who prays for Satan? Who in eighteen centuries has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that need it most?” Luke finds the Mark Twain quote a few days deep into his reading of Ben’s journals. It’s one of the more reflective of them, but the thing Luke is finding about a reflective Ben is that he doesn’t actually go into details.

There are scraps taped from magazines into the pages, like they caught his eye and he didn’t want to lose them in the rest of the mess of his house, and then he’ll wax poetic about it for a few sentences. It’s not often that he goes on for pages and pages; Luke thinks that maybe the journals that look like this are from darker moments during Ben’s stay in California, in the ugly cul-de-sac that Luke and Leia grew up in. He can’t blame him.

He doesn’t know who Ben might have been thinking of when he took note of this quote. He’s not too interested in finding out, for his own sake.

Padme Amidala was one of the first women elected to the senate from the state of Massachusetts. She was almost certainly the youngest person of either gender elected, but she was, mostly, popular. She quickly became a rising star both in politics and--though she rejected the attention, saying that that wasn’t what she wanted to be known for--as a minor celebrity. With her looks, it might have been been hard to avoid it.

In a lot of circles, particularly the southern states, but even in some of New England, where she was most popular, her push for civil rights reform got her negative attention, though many younger voters (voters mostly around her age) liked her enough to re-elect her. After the election, when she started receiving death threats, it seemed appropriate to assign Agents Kenobi and Skywalker as a kind of security detail. She knew Ben from college, and Anakin caught her eye almost as quickly as she had caught his.

Almost as if it had always been meant to happen, Senator Amidala and Agent Skywalker fell hopelessly, naturally in love. Things escalated quickly--a match setting fire to a forest in the matter of minutes might sound impossible, but it can happen.

Not that they could tell anyone except for Ben, and even then, it was Padme who confided in him, and not Anakin.

The situation became infinitely more complicated when Senator Amidala became pregnant; a veil of secrecy had to be cast on all of her personal activities, and was allowed under the guise of more threatening letters (which, to be fair, she had been receiving, so). Luckily, fashion was starting to change again, and oversized clothing along with the presence of the pregnancy for as long as possible, but there were other problems brewing.

For one thing, Padme had to decide whether or not to run for re-election. She wanted to, since she had her eyes on a career in politics ever since she saw her father doing it, and even with the pregnancy, she didn’t want to give it up. Anakin and Padme had a small, rushed wedding, witnessed by Ben who had asked both of them separately before hand whether or not they wanted to do it. Anakin, being Anakin, never hesitated--even if he was ever unsure of what it was he actually wanted, he always wanted it as soon as possible, and being married meant that he’d be able to hold onto Padme. For her part, Padme wasn’t entirely sure, but what other option did she have? They could hide the marriage until after the babies were born, and they could finagle something. Anything. The plan was awful from the start.

Anakin Skywalker had also begun his own entanglement in the criminal world a while ago, before they even met, but things only seemed be getting worse. He was worried about supporting his family--even if Padme didn’t end up running, he wanted to make sure that they could live comfortably. He wanted to give her the world, and if he couldn’t, it wasn’t worth having. There was an incident, which Ben would later wonder about in his journals (whether he should have followed Anakin, rather than letting him give chase to the stalker alone, whether he should have interrogated Anakin more thoroughly, something, anything), but the actual facts of which were only known by Anakin himself.

As far as the police report went, there had been a stalker on Senator Amidala’s property. He broke into the house, had made an attempt on the senator’s life. Agents Kenobi and Skywalker appeared almost immediately, despite it being in the dead of night, and had scared the assailant badly enough that he ran. While Ben stayed back to make sure Padme was safe and that there weren’t any other security breaches, Anakin followed the stalker. He was shot--once, which was enough, though he felt too embarrassed to let anyone but the doctor see to it, and the police figured that it wouldn’t be that bad if they let it go. Skywalker shot back in defense.

At least, that’s how it officially goes.

Anakin had also started getting more anxious in a mean way about everything: the pregnancy, and, worse, Padme’s relationship with Ben. He knew they were old friends, he knew that they were still friends. In his worse nights, he had started accusing Ben of sleeping with his wife.

Nobody except Padme, Ben, and Anakin actually know what happened the night Padme was killed, which isn’t so different from the story of the stalker. Anakin went missing, and after Ben gave his statement, was declared the main suspect in the case. He ran, and the bruising on Padme was too large to have been caused by Ben’s hands. Ben retired, mostly, from the agency, and apart from the one entry in his journal from that night, never talked about it again. When people asked, he’d change the subject. And Padme, well.

There’s a reason why Luke and Leia were sent to live with their aunt and uncle. For one thing, Anakin never really cared for Owen Lars, and for another, he only thought there was the one baby--and probably assumed that he’d been killed when Padme died. The government covered up the case so thoroughly that nobody even knew what a “Skywalker” was.

* * *

 

If Luke’s going to be totally honest with anyone other than his supervisor, he hates desk duty. It’s still better than the hospital, though, because at least here he can feel useful, can help with some of the investigation into Jabba the Hutt, whose file has been firmly reopened with the association between him and the kidnapping of a federal agent, and he can go home to his own apartment at the end of the day.

It’s not really safe, and he knows that--he hasn’t felt safe since probably the day his uncle’s house was set on fire, since the day he got involved in all of this, except maybe sometimes when he’s been curled against Wedge’s side, but he can’t talk about that. In group, they ask questions to see where he’s at mentally, and he says, because they can’t call him out on classified information, that he’s been better, but he’s been worse. They don’t know it was his dad. At least at home, he can feel a little less vulnerable.

Porkins settles into his desk across the aisle from Luke, which isn’t saying much since the room itself is pretty far, but it’s still enough to give each other some personal space. He’s on medical leave, too, technically, since he’s about to go into heart surgery (which leaves both Wedge and Luke without partners), but he’s been sneaking in for the same reason Luke has been. They can’t stay away. “Leia’s going to go looking for Han,” he says.

Luke resists rolling his eyes at Porkins, mostly because he doesn’t think Porkins really deserves or needs it. “No she’s not. Not alone.” His sister’s crazy, maybe--she’s in love with Han Solo, for one thing, and for another, she went back into the fray for Luke on a gut instinct alone--but she’s not stupid. Trying to run a raid on Jabba’s “Palace,” as he’s been calling it, would be suicide.

He gets a nod while Porkins takes a sip from a steamy mug of coffee. Still too hot; he winces before putting it down. “You’re right. She’s bringing Lando and Chewie with her.”

It’s not something Luke can immediately address, but he tucks the information away for future reference.

* * *

 

It’s possible that maybe Anakin was right to be a little jealous of Ben and Padme. They were best friends, and Padme had risked her career in the past to help him. Any slight interaction between them could have been misinterpreted as gestures of a flirtatious nature to someone who was actively looking for them. Anakin was in love.

He also had another mentor: Sheeve Palpatine, another senator from New England in whom Anakin felt he could genuinely confide his fears about just about anything. This senator had ties to Miami and Los Angeles and had met a young Anakin Skywalker on a trip to the latter. He’d been so impressed by the youth, allegedly, that he offered to front any schooling costs, and then provided the recommendation that he join the FBI in the first place. Palpatine acted, sometimes, like a surrogate father figure to Anakin: Ben could figure in as a brother, maybe, but he couldn’t fill in the gap not having a dad had given Anakin.

Palpatine was also heavily involved in organized crime, and had been looking for an heir to the empire he was building. He knew he couldn’t live forever, even though he wanted to. He just had to live long enough. Anakin seemed like the perfect candidate--in need of a paternal figure like Sheeve, vulnerable and able to be helped, if it could be framed the right way. He just needed a little pushing in the right direction. Wait long enough and all the pieces you’ve pulled will fall into place. The incident with the stalker proved that Anakin had what it took.

He just needed encouragement to go further.

* * *

 

Leia shows up an hour after she was supposed to. Luke gets it, because they’ve both got a completionist streak in them that forces them to try to get to the bottom of things before they take a break, and besides, it’s not the first time. “Lando’s still out,” she says, and he frowns.

“You guys are supposed to stick together.”

“He’s got Chewie with him. I wanted to take you home.”

“Wedge was going to.”

“You didn’t get the radio dispatch?” When she asks, Luke feels like he’s going to throw up. He’d kept his own radio off, assuming that if Porkins heard anything, he’d tell him, or if it was really important, they’d use the car phone. “Luke. You’re turning green.”

“I haven’t been listening to the radio.”

“Nothing happened,” she says, and she makes a face at him, the same one she always makes at him whenever she knows he immediately jumped to the worst case scenario. It’s been happening a lot more and more recently, worse than when they were kids. “One of his leads was injured, he’s taking her to the hospital.” She thinks for a second. “Alright, maybe something did happen, and someone did get hurt, but it’s not. Relax.”

He can’t. His muscles have tensed up and won’t let go, and he struggles to get to his feet, leaning on the desk until he can work his crutches under his armpits. It’s not the first time he’s had to use them--sprained an ankle back in fifth grade--but he’s getting sick of it more now than he did then. Leia looks like she’s offering to let him lean on her shoulder, but she also knows he’d say, “No, it’s fine,” so she holds back.

“Does he know you’re taking me home?”

“I’m pretty sure he’ll figure it out. What are you so worried about? C’mon. You’ve been in a box all day--did you even try to step outside for five minutes?”

He’d make a joke about being shot by one of Vader’s guys if he didn’t know how much it would probably upset her. “Got distracted. There’s a lot of information going around about Jabba, and I’m trying to figure out how much of it is actually good for us or just rumors.”

“We were doing the same thing.”

He wants to bring it up. He waits until they’re outside, after Leia’s finished checking the car for bugs, and then when they’re already on their way to his apartment, far enough that she’d feel bad about kicking him out of the car for asking the wrong questions. “You’re planning on going before I’m back on my feet.”

“It’s not as though you’re not on your feet most of the time regardless of what anyone tries to tell you about rest,” she answers.

“You didn’t say you’re not going.”

“Do you really think I can wait?”

There’s a moment where he can almost imagine Ben saying something comparing Leia to their father--which is something that didn’t used to bother him, back before he knew who his dad was, back when Ben was lying for their sake. Uncle Owen didn’t like to talk about Anakin; any stories about him were from Ben, and it was comforting, even, to know what parts of them were like their parents. Now it just feels like ash in his mouth. “I think you have to,” he says, and he wants to plead but he doesn’t know how to do it without making it sound like it. Anyone else, he can win over with a look and two words. Leia sees right through him and always has.

“Why? Would you wait, if you could run in there?”

“We don’t have the right information yet, and you could just be getting yourself in danger,” he says. He keeps his voice steady; it’s easy, with what they’ve prescribed him to help with the anxiety they’re convinced he has after talking to Vader. He’s not sure they’re wrong, not sure he’s ever not had anxiety in his entire life. “Remember, how you were trying to convince me to get out of this, because I’m the only family you have?”

“Don’t try to guilt trip me, Luke. I said that I knew I should try, and that I knew you too well to think you’d listen.” Her hands are tight on the steering wheel, and her hair looks good, cropped to her shoulder as it’s been since after the last raid they were on together.

“Leia,” he says. “You don’t have anything to prove. We can get him back.”

They’re pulling into the apartment parking lot, and she shuts off the engine as soon as she’s in at least enough to not look like an asshole. “You don’t get it,” she says, like they’re teenagers again, like she’s sneaking out to meet with some of the older boys behind the school not necessarily because she wanted to but because she needed to be able to get out of the house. Leia has a tendency to do things because she thinks she needs to.

“If I don’t get it, then just explain it to me.”

“I don’t want--” she pauses, steadies herself, and it’s strange to see her like this. Up until now, maybe, she always seemed like she should have been the older sibling, but something’s changed. She doesn’t let go of the steering wheel. “What if I’m too late?”

“We can’t say that.”

“You can’t. I’ve been worrying about it since we went back for you and he wasn’t already there.”

He reaches out to touch her shoulder and she lets him. “You don’t need to tell me or anything,” he says, “but--”

“You’re probably right. I don't need to tell you a thing,” she answers.

“It’s not like he’s the first person you’ve been in love with though, right?”

“I don’t want to answer that.”

He won’t make her. If Han, by some strange miracle, is the first man that Leia’s actually been in love with, there’s a problem and it’s become that much more important to Luke personally that he heal up as soon as possible because he knows his sister, and he knows that maybe the most this conversation might delay her movements is for a month. He knows how deeply she feels things, and that she’s sometimes impulsive, particularly when there's someone she cares about involved. There’s Ben’s voice in his head again: She’s just like their father.

“Did you want to come in for dinner? I have meatloaf in the fridge that Porkins’ wife made before she remembered that he’s supposed to lay off the red meat for a while.”

Leia shakes her head. “I’ll stop by later, after Lando finishes canvasing,” she says. “Can you make it up alright?”

“I’ll be fine. And Leia?”

“What?”

He quirks his lips up, because it’s the first time in weeks that he hasn’t been on the receiving end of the statement. “Get some rest,” he says, and she looks at him bug-eyed for a second, too stunned that he has the gall to tell her to take a break when he’s the one who’s been pawing over Ben Kenobi’s journals day and night. He can’t hustle out of the car quite quick enough with the crutches to avoid the start of a complaint against him, but he manages.

When he gets back to his apartment, he does a quick sweep before he can relax, and it’s harder to sneak around while holding a gun when you’re on crutches, but he’s gotten better at it. He has meatloaf and work to do. It’s going to be a long four weeks.

**Author's Note:**

> If you're into the tumblr thing, I'm over there at sailorbirdie.tumblr.com.


End file.
